


Side-wise, headlong

by ineptshieldmaid



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Non-Monogamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-18
Updated: 2011-05-18
Packaged: 2017-10-19 13:06:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/201164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineptshieldmaid/pseuds/ineptshieldmaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Eames is a sex fiend, and Arthur has more walls than a prefab house factory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Side-wise, headlong

**Author's Note:**

> Much gratitude to Trojie for alpha and beta-reading over the course of several weeks, and kayloulee for her read-throughs along the way.
> 
> Watch out for the anxiety triggers, folks. Arthur copped some bleedthrough from a particularly stressful week in RL-land.

Eames is a bit of a sex fiend. Arthur’s not really qualified to judge, but, having worked with Eames on and off for years now, he’s come to the conclusion that Eames is a bit of a sex fiend. Not in the ‘most people are disturbingly fixated on this sex business, which is why I’m better at my job than anyone else: fewer distractions’ way. In the honest-to-god would fuck anything with legs way.

Possibly Arthur is presently concerned about Eames’ sex fiend status because Eames is fucking - sleeping with, no, wait, _fucking_ , noisily and often and just on the other side of the wall - Ariadne. Apparently Ariadne enjoys this quite a lot. Arthur is quite glad she’s happy; and, if pushed, he’d admit to being glad Eames is happy: but he himself would appreciate peace and quiet.

He makes sure he’s in the corridor when they go to leave the next morning.

‘Have a nice night, you two?’ Ariadne flushes prettily, and Eames smirks at him. ‘Keep it down to a dull roar next time, would you? Some of us like our beauty sleep.’

‘How’re you getting on with that pole up your arse, Arthur?’ Eames asks, rolling his eyes. ‘I understand that puts something of a damper on your love life, but you needn’t be so stuffy.’

‘I am not stuffy,’ Arthur says. Prim, possibly. Stuffy, he soundly rejects. Ariadne’s still hiding behind Eames, but her expression has gone from one of embarrassment to amusement.

Eames raises one eyebrow. ‘What is it then? Jealous?’

Arthur folds his arms across his chest. ‘You wish, Mr Eames.’

Eames casts his eyes up and down the length of Arthur’s body. ‘Oh, I think I do.’ Ariadne just giggles quietly into her hand, and Arthur makes a mental note: not possessive. Possibly non-exclusive? He turns to lead the way down the corridor to the lift, making sure Eames has a good view of his ass as he goes.

Arthur’s never been much of a one for sex, but flirting has its attractions.

* * *

If Arthur has a type at all, Eames is not his type. Mal was his type: sophisticated, intelligent, impeccably dressed. Charming, but with a bit of a cruel streak. In love with someone else. Female, Arthur adds, absent-mindedly. On the list of traits, it’s by far the least significant.

Eames is charming, but never cruel. He’s unkempt, abrasive, and wears terrible shirts. He is intelligent, Arthur will grant him that.

Nevertheless, it comes as something of a surprise when Eames throws a wadded-up ball of paper at Arthur’s head, and Arthur looks over from the charts he’s working on and thinks, apropos of nothing: _I want to suck his cock_.

Arthur’s fairly certain Eames can’t read minds, but he stands with his feet spread apart and his hands on his hips and Arthur loses most of what he says next. It’s not that he’s overwhelmed by desire, or anything like that. It’s the surprise of it which throws him: _I want to suck his cock_ is not a thought pattern which spends much time in Arthur’s head, in reference to anyone.

‘Yoo-hoo,’ Eames says, and does something ridiculous with his upper body so as to peer sideways into Arthur’s face. ‘Oh, you are in there. I said, Rodriguez called and I am not dealing with that rat-faced bastard after what happened in Dubai. You call him back.’

Arthur sighs. ‘When you say you’re not dealing with him, you mean you’re happy for me to deal with him on your behalf, don’t you?’

Eames straightens up. ‘ _Our_ behalf, Darling. And yes. He pays well.’

Arthur goes to call Rodriguez. _I want to suck Eames’ cock_ , he thinks, to himself, testing it to see if it sounds plausible. Then Rodriguez comes on the line, and there’s no one in the world Arthur wants to keep further from the concept of cocksucking than Rodriguez, so he leaves this line of investigation for another day.

* * *

Over the next month, Arthur ascertains several things.

Firstly, Rodriguez is, as Eames puts it, a rat-faced bastard. But he pays well and they get out of Istanbul with all their limbs, the promised monies, and most of their clothes. They all end up back in Mombasa, for lack of a better option. Ariadne stays with Eames. Arthur checks into a hotel.

Secondly, Eames and Ariadne are not, precisely, a couple. Arthur knows this because he asked them, and he asked them because he needed to know how many rooms to book in Istanbul. The answer came in two parts:

‘Oh, no, we’re not - we’re just. Um.’ This from Ariadne, whose face was approximately the same shade of red as her scarf by this time.

‘We’ll take separate rooms, thanks.’ This from Eames, who had his feet propped up on a desk and was flicking rubber bands at the wall. ‘But you might want to make sure at least one of them doesn’t share a wall with you.’

Thirdly, he does, in fact, want to suck Eames’ cock. Arthur knows this because he was thinking it all the way through the how-many-rooms conversation. Eames had his feet up on the desk and Arthur did, in fact, want to go over there, remove said feet from the desk, place himself between Eames knees, and suck Eames off.

Arthur’s not entirely sure _why_ he wants to suck Eames’ cock, although part of the appeal is certainly his expectation that it would shut Eames up. Eames wouldn’t shut up easily, of course: but he would shut up eventually, because eventually, he wouldn’t be able to string two words together.

Arthur has exactly no experience in the art of fellatio, and he’s not particularly well-versed in any other forms of intercourse, but that doesn’t phase him. He picks things up well, it’s what makes him good at his job.

Some mornings, when Ariadne comes into their workspace, or the cafe in his hotel in Mombasa, and she’s pink-cheeked and glowing as people seem to be when satisfied with their sex lives, Arthur wonders about sucking Eames’ cock. He wonders if she enjoys it, or if she thinks of it as a chore, as some women do. Maybe she doesn’t suck cock at all. Maybe she sucks cock like it’s going out of style.

Arthur’s never thought this much about cocks in his life. He’s never thought this much about genitalia of any description in his life. He’s even tried wanking and thinking about Eames’ cock at the same time, and it was... odd. But not unpleasant. He tries thinking about Eames sucking _his_ cock, and that doesn’t work at all. Unsurprising: getting head has never been on his priority list, even when he was in college and reasonably interested in the whole business.

‘So, you and Eames,’ Arthur says one morning. Ariadne cuddles her coffee and looks pained. She comes over here almost every morning, complaining that Eames isn’t fit company until at least midday, preferably mid-afternoon. Sometimes she talks about going back to school, but mostly, they talk about dreaming, and design, and the kinds of environments they’d build if they had all the time in the world and no one to rob with it.

‘Me and Eames?’

‘You and Eames,’ Arthur confirms. ‘Your... thing.’

‘Ongoing, mutually beneficial non-exclusive sexual relationship?’ Ariadne supplies, sounding like she’s selling an insurance plan.

‘You’re living together, aren’t you?’

Ariadne shrugs. ‘Only when we’re in Mombasa. Well. We’re together all the time when we’re working, we’re used to each other.’ She stirs the foam in her coffee with the tip of her finger. ‘Doesn’t make us a couple or anything. Why do you care, anyway?’

‘Just curious,’ Arthur says. ‘And I need to know how many rooms to book if we take this trip to Alexandria.’

‘Two,’ Ariadne says, promptly. ‘Three, including you.’

‘Right,’ Arthur says. Some things, it seems, he will never understand.

* * *

The thing is, in Alexandria, Eames pulls off something fantastic involving a previously unexhibited knowledge of Cantonese, several card tricks including one Arthur’s never seen before, and a stolen ferret. It not only gets the job done in half the time, it nets them some unexpected and interesting information about Rodriguez’s latest dabblings in the Egyptian black market. Arthur for once agrees with Eames: he won’t be dealing with the rat-faced bastard any time soon.

Ariadne takes a shine to the ferret. Arthur takes more than a shine, he takes a fucking hard-on to Eames. They’re in the lift up to the third floor, and they’re alone, because Ariadne’s taken the ferret to find a vet. Eames is leaning back against the wall, looking strung-out and insufferably pleased with himself. Arthur would kind of like to slap the expression off his face and he’d _really_ like to -

‘- suck your cock.’

‘Sorry mate, I must be hallucinating. Could you repeat that?’

Arthur realises, with a dawning sense of horror, that he must have said that last part aloud. Well, fuck it. ‘Eames,’ he says, straightening his shoulders and carefully looking at Eames face and not his crotch, ‘I really, really want to suck your cock.’ Eames looks flabbergasted, but not repelled. That’s good, isn’t it? ‘If that’s alright with you,’ Arthur adds, as an afterthought.

‘It is -’ and Arthur finds himself crowded up against the lift wall - ‘ _perfectly alright by me_.’ Then he’s being kissed, with some vigour, by Eames. This was not exactly in Arthur’s plan, if he had a plan, but it’s not bad. It’s. Well, it’s Eames and he’s frighteningly clever and insolent and disorganised and a fucking magic genius at what he does and _oh fuck_ , Eames’ cock is pressed up against Arthur’s thigh. That’s exhilarating and terrifying and if he does the right thing - no wait, if he does _anything_ with his hands or his tongue Eames shudders and shoves just a little bit into Arthur’s body. Eames is hard and Eames is hard because of Arthur and Arthur really wants to suck him off.

The bevy of elegant and gaudily-veiled women standing outside the lift door on the third floor don’t seem to appreciate the enormity of this situation. Arthur ignores them, and more or less drags Eames by the collar down the hall to Eames’ room. Eames gives him a funny look - Arthur’s room is actually closer - but Arthur really doesn’t want to have conversations about boundaries and privacy right now, so he pins Eames up against the door and kisses him. Eames moans and grabs Arthur by the ass, pulling him close up against Eames’ body. Eames is, oh god, so fucking hard and the sounds he’s making are wonderful. Arthur’s never heard sounds like that before. Not just the part where Eames is a man and everyone else Arthur’s slept with has been a woman: there’s no words to it, but the noises Eames hums into Arthur’s mouth are noises of _oh yes_ and _more please_ and he’s so free with them, so generous that Arthur can’t think of denying him.

Then Eames pushes his hips up into Arthur’s and the warm tight fascinating heat of Eames’ cock rubs up against - _oh, fuck_. Arthur bites down hard on Eames lip (which seems to turn him on, note that for the future) and fights down panic as it occurs to him, even though it should have been obvious by now, that _he’s_ hard too, hard and rutting up against Eames like a goddamn schoolboy. He’s hard and Eames fucking knows it.

He pulls away and drags in a sudden breath. Eames whines and tightens his hands on Arthur’s hips.

‘Not here,’ Arthur grits out, passing off terror for annoyance. ‘Open the damn door.’

‘Settle, petal,’ Eames says, far too calmly, and produces the key from his back pocket. Arthur glowers at him for the two seconds it takes to open the door, and seriously considers giving up right there. Considers, but by no means follows through. They fall through the door and into Eames’ bedroom, which looks exactly like Arthur’s except the other way around. There isn’t much space between bed and door, and Eames tries at once to drag Arthur down onto it. Arthur resists, disentangling himself from Eames’ grasp and staying just out of reach. His chest heaves and this is all going so very, very wrong. Sex is supposed to make you breathless, but probably not like you _can’t breathe at all_.

Eames just looks at him. Arthur tries to think of something to say which won’t sound pathetic. He should really give up, but he wants. Oh, he wants.

‘You sure you want to do this?’ Eames asks. ‘I mean, I was thinking it sounded too good to be true, mister perfect-and-proper Arthur suddenly taking a fancy to my cock.’ The corners of his mouth twitch a little. ‘You know you have to get your clothes scruffed up to have sex, don’t you?’

Arthur knows an out when he sees one. ‘Oh dear,’ he says, very seriously. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘I’m afraid so,’ Eames says, equally seriously, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. ‘I hear people even get sweaty and dishevelled. Somewhat like getting into a bar fight, in that respect.’

‘Precisely the reason I avoid bar fights.’ He’s surprised to find his mouth curving into a smile, and he drifts closer to Eames, just out of easy arm’s reach. The sense of panic is dissipating, too. Apparently shit-kicking with Eames is a soothing habit. He allows himself to reach out and trail one fingertip down Eames’ face. It’s stubbly. And there are smudges on Eames’ cheeks picked up some time during the afternoon’s work. ‘The thing is, Mister Eames, I happen to want to suck you off. And yet... I would so hate to crease my shirt. Do you suppose we can come to some arrangement?’

Eames looks down at Arthur’s shirt long enough for Arthur to know that he knows that Arthur’s shirt is already well and truly messed up from their little groping sessions in the lift and against the door. Arthur can feel the tips of his ears go red, which is very aggravating. Then Eames starts unbuttoning his own shirt, and really, the state of Arthur’s ears is far from the most important consideration right now.

Here’s the thing: Arthur’s thought a lot about Eames’ cock. But he hasn’t thought much about the rest of Eames. If he thought about it at all, it was to conclude that he wasn’t harbouring any hankering to do much to the rest of Eames. Recent events in elevators notwithstanding, the things Arthur wants about Eames are his irrepressible, insolent wit; his big, solid thighs which Arthur is going to push apart and hold onto while blowing him; his apparently effortless skill at what he does; his cock, and, with it, the chance to render Eames really, truly wordless for once in his life.

Eames isn’t exactly making a production of undressing - no ridiculous flourishes or dramatic glances. But he’s doing it slowly, even though it’s unnecessary, opening up the vee of his shirt bit by bit before shrugging it off. If Eames wants to be naked while getting head, that’s perfectly fine with Arthur. Arthur wonders what he’s supposed to be doing, while Eames unholsters his gun with practiced ease, and then wiggles a bit as he gets the belly holster off.

‘Like what you see?’ Eames asks, turning his attention to his belt and fly. And... yeah, Arthur does like what he sees. It’s Eames - Eames is an annoying little shit but Arthur likes him anyway. Eames naked is no more or less Eames than Eames dressed, but Arthur’s never seen Eames naked before. Somehow, in all their years working together, he’s never even seen Eames without a shirt. He didn’t know, until now, how Eames’ chest hair curled, or the way Eames’ nipples peeked out from under the curls. He did know Eames was pretty built, because he’d wrestled with Eames before, but he didn’t know Eames had a tattoo, just one, a bluebird over his right hip. He didn’t know that Eames’ belly hair darkened lower down, to a dark brown trail between underpants and belly button.

It had never even occurred to Arthur that there were all these things he could have been knowing about Eames.

‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ Eames says, with a lopsided grin, and Arthur realises he hasn’t said anything, just... stared.

‘Take your trousers off, Eames,’ Arthur says. Eames’ eyes widen just a little and his pupils dilate noticeably. A little spark of curiosity lights in Arthur’s mind. Eames likes being given orders.

‘Arthur, I’m disappointed in you,’ Eames says. Apparently his interest in orders doesn’t extend to following them. ‘It is conventional to remove one’s footwear before one’s trousers, especially in sexual contexts.’

Arthur folds his arms across his chest and does his best to look stern. ‘Get on with it, then. And don’t try to make it sexy, I’m not hiding a secret foot fetish.’

Eames unlaces his boots and looks up through his lashes at Arthur. ‘Are you sure? You look like you have it in you to be a bit of a kinky bastard.’

‘You have no idea how wrong you are.’ Arthur squats down and takes Eames’ foot out of Eames’ hands, because standing there with his arms crossed being interrogated about his sexual peccadilloes or lack thereof is a long way from his idea of fun. The boot doesn’t come off easily: Arthur has to wriggle it and tug a bit, and Eames tangles his hand in Arthur’s hair. Arthur thinks he ought to hate that, but actually, it’s kind of... nice. ‘Next time,’ he mutters, as the boot comes free, ‘remind me to bring a shoehorn.’

Eames’ laugh is warm and his mockery is cut with obvious affection. ‘Not a foot fetishist, absolutely not. Perhaps an accessories fetish?’

‘I do not have an accessories fetish.’ Arthur has better luck with the second boot, and it slides off easily. ‘And before you say anything, paper knives are efficient stationery items.’

Boots disposed of, Arthur looks up at Eames and realises he’s _exactly_ where he’s wanted to be. Slipping out of his crouch to his knees, he’s kneeling between Eames’ thighs. Without conscious deliberation, Arthur’s hands brace themselves on Eames’ legs, shifting slowly up the inseams of his trousers toward his crotch.

‘Oh, good God, ’ Eames says, his fingers in Arthur’s hair tightening slightly. ‘Have you any idea what you look like right now?’

Arthur’s mouth goes dry, and he licks his lips. On reflection, this probably makes things worse. ‘Like I’m about to go down on you?’ he asks. Eames’ fly is open, and he can see Eames’ cock, erect and held up close against his body in his underpants.

‘Something like that, yeah.’ Eames lifts his hips when Arthur slides his palms across them, and Arthur tucks his fingers into the waistband of both trousers and pants at once, pulling them down far enough that Eames can kick them off. His knuckles drag over Eames’ skin from hip to knee.

Eames surprises him by wrapping his own hand around his cock as soon as he’s free of his pants. Arthur bites back a whine of protest, because this feels like a test. Eames’ other hand is still in his hair, scratching gentle circles at his temple.

Arthur just watches Eames jack himself, part fascinated and part unsure how to go from here to - well.

‘I’m clean, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ Eames says. Arthur blinks up at him, because that wasn’t what he’d been thinking about, not at all, but come to think of it he _ought_ to, what with Eames being a sex fiend and all.

‘No, I was...’ Was what? Was wondering how it feels for you? Worrying about how awkward I’d feel in your place? Arthur shakes his head to clear it. ‘May I?’ He holds out one hand, hovering near, but not quite touching, Eames’ dick. Instead of answering, Eames takes Arthur’s fingers and guides them around himself, shaping his grip and setting the pace, slow and firm. He leaves Arthur to it pretty quickly, withdrawing his hands from both his cock and Arthur’s hair. Arthur strokes experimentally for a moment or two, noting the catch in Eames’ breath as he brushes the head of his cock with his thumb.

It’s not until he licks up a bead of precome from the head of Eames’ cock, and it tastes salty and unfamiliar and yet fascinating, that Arthur remembers: this is the first time he’s touched another man’s cock. He ponders that for a moment, teasing Eames’ foreskin with his lips and tongue. It doesn’t seem like that much of a concern, really, not given his normally limited interest in genitalia of any sort. What matters is that Eames is smooth-shiny spit-slick salty skin against his tongue, and when Arthur sucks him deep into his mouth, Eames’ thighs tremble and Eames’ breath stutters. That’s all that matters.

Arthur lefts his eyes fall closed and breathes in the heavy, musky smells of Eames and sex. He’s used to the smell of Eames, they’ve worked together and lived together and been on the run together, but he’s not used to the smell of Eames like _this_ , the smell of Eames’ most private parts, the smell of Eames when he’s hard and needing and his cock is in Arthur’s mouth. It does something to Arthur, gives him a weird sort of rush, messes with his sense of time and place. His awareness narrows down to this little bubble of Eames on the edge of the bed and Arthur between his legs, and time loses out to cause-and-effect, Arthur pressing his tongue right _there_ and Eames moaning, low and needy.

Arthur pulls back, breathing hard. He has to look around him, get his bearings, just for a moment.

Eames is looking down at him, wide-eyed and flushed at the cheeks. He looks absolutely, gorgeously, wrecked. Arthur is suddenly and sharply aware of his own arousal, the speed of his heart and the curl of desire in his belly, and he knows he’ll be jerking off to the thought of Eames like this. To the thought of _himself_ , bringing Eames to this point.

‘All right, mate?’ Eames asks, a crinkle of concern visible on his flushed face.

‘All right, yeah,’ Arthur says, and it is, it really is. ‘Could you, maybe... say something?’ The words are out before he’s really considered them, before he has a chance to weigh them up against the things he thought he wanted.

‘Are you asking me to talk dirty to you, Arthur?’ Eames looks delighted. ‘And you said you weren’t a kinky bastard.’ His tone turns speculative. ‘And what, precisely, would you like me to say?’

‘I don’t give a fuck,’ Arthur snaps back, unreasonably irritated. ‘I just want to know that I’ve blown you into incoherency, and I can’t know that if you aren’t fucking saying anything to start with.’

‘Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit,’ Eames says, in a sing-song tone.

‘I don’t even want to know why you know that.’ Eames just smirks at him, and Arthur turns his attention back to Eames’ cock.

‘Sed do eiusmod tempor - _oh_.’ And Arthur counts that as his first victory, causing Eames to break off in his inane recitation. ‘Christ, Arthur, what are you trying to do to me?’ Arthur thinks the answer to that is obvious, so he ignores Eames and just keeps on doing what he’s doing. ‘Have you any idea,’ Eames asks, ‘just how long I’ve been thinking about this? About you and your gorgeous fucking mouth and your uptight fucking manners and how much you’d _love_ sucking cock.’ He stops, for a moment, and seems to reconsider. ‘Although to be perfectly honest I thought cock probably wasn’t your thing, but that’s not to stop a man from dreaming, surely?’

Under normal circumstances, Arthur would hate to hear this, hate this sort of speculation on who he is and what he does or doesn’t like. But under normal circumstances, he isn’t busy finding out that he has practically no gag reflex and that is, actually, rather convenient.

‘Oh, _fuck_ ,’ Eames mutters, and he lets go of the sheet to fist one hand in Arthur’s hair again. ‘Arthur, you have, my god, a truly spectacular mouth.’ Arthur hums something which is supposed to indicate his disdain for this sort of flattery, and Eames’ breath hitches and his hips buck up. Arthur presses him back into the mattress with one hand on his hip, just over the tattooed bluebird. He lets the other hand wander down to Eames’ balls. They’re drawn up tight and Arthur realises, with a deep thrill, that Eames must be on the edge, must need to come so very badly right now. The ragged, wordless noises Eames is coming out with suggest that Eames agrees with him on this score. Arthur draws back far enough to run his tongue over the sensitive spot just below the head of Eames’ dick, and thinks, smugly, that Eames has gone non-verbal pleasingly fast.

But apparently he’s wrong in that, because Eames tugs on his hair a little and says, urgently, ‘Arthur, Arthur, _fuck_ , Arthur.’ It’s not a sentence, per say, but it’s still words. Arthur scowls up at him and keeps up what he’s doing with his tongue.

Eames is flushed, not just in his face, but in great splotchy patches all down his chest.

‘Arthur,’ Eames tries, again. ‘Arthur, I’m going to -’ he stops, swallows and then spits out, in all in a rush, ‘CanIcomeinyourmouthArthurpleaseIneed - oh _hell_.’ And this last comes when Arthur slides his lips as far down Eames’ cock as he can go, feeling the head of it nudge against the back of his throat. He doesn’t bother answering, just takes as much as he can and keeps his eyes fixed on Eames the whole time.

Eames tips his head back, exposing the line of his neck to Arthur, and his thighs shake and his belly quivers under the hand Arthur has there. He comes with a long, ragged moan, nothing loud or showy, but somehow the most fascinating sound Arthur can remember hearing. It seems to go on forever, Eames’ cock throbbing in his mouth and Eames’ body shuddering and Eames’ voice ringing in Arthur’s ears. It’s almost enough to make up for the fact that Eames formed a whole sentence just moments before coming.

Eventually, reluctantly, Arthur draws away and wipes his mouth self-consciously on the back of his hand. He sits back on his heels and then decides he doesn’t like staring up at Eames anymore, and levers himself to his feet.

Eames stares up at him instead.

‘Huh,’ Eames says. ‘OK.’ He appears to think about that for a second, and adds, ‘ _Huh_ ,’ in slightly stronger tones.

Arthur snickers. ‘You’re not making any sense, Mr Eames,’ he says, and ruffles Eames’ already dishevelled hair.

‘How come you make sense?’ Eames pouts. His eyes skate down Arthur’s body and settle on the visible distortion Arthur’s half-hard cock makes in his trousers. Then he _licks his lips_ , apparently unconsciously, and, OK, that’s more interesting than Arthur would have expected.

In the two seconds Arthur takes to ponder that one, Eames stands up, and suddenly Arthur has a naked, slightly sticky Eames wrapped around him. He goes with it, lets himself be kissed and kisses back, enjoying the knowledge that Eames can taste himself in Arthur’s mouth. And enjoying Eames’ mouth, to be perfectly honest about it. Eames has a nice mouth. Arthur wouldn’t necessarily object to kissing Eames’ mouth again. It’s all soft and warm and Eames does interesting things with his lips and tongue.

Still, when Eames’ hand drifts down to and dips below Arthur’s waistband, Arthur can’t help it, he goes stiff - and not the good kind of stiff, the bad, pole-up-your-arse, unresponsive kind of stiff.

Eames backs off, but leaves his hands on Arthur’s hips. Arthur wishes he wouldn’t but can’t quite bring himself to remove them.

‘I’d better be going,’ he says, and he knows that’s not going to be enough but fuck, he wishes it could be just for once.

Eames narrows his eyes at him. ‘Excuse me?’

‘I, um, I’ve got an early flight out tomorrow,’ Arthur improvises.

‘Don’t you try to tell me you’re not into this,’ Eames says, with another significant glance at Arthur’s cock. Arthur hates his cock right now. On the other hand, he’s hard, he’s been hard for ages, and he really fucking needs some time alone sometime soon.

‘I didn’t say that,’ he snaps. He expects Eames to look hurt, or angry, but he doesn’t. He looks a bit confused, and a bit irritated, and a bit curious. He does let go of Arthur’s hips, but he doesn’t step any further back. And Arthur doesn’t, either. Neither of them say anything for a moment: Arthur stares at Eames and wills him to give it the fuck up, and Eames frowns at Arthur like Arthur’s a puzzle he’s about to crack.

‘I’m not going to laugh at you, or anything,’ Eames says, after a moment. _Yeah, you are,_ Arthur thinks, but without rancour. It’s just the way these things go. People who wouldn’t dream of laughing at him for wanting to do, well, anything - they’re never as generous when it comes to _not_ wanting and _not_ doing.

‘I don’t like getting head,’ Arthur says, which is part of the truth.

‘Who says I was going to blow you?’ Eames counters. He’s folded his arms across his chest, and of course, this has turned into an argument, same as it always does. Arthur really ought to know better by now.

‘You don’t touch yourself,’ Eames says, and this is going off the script, but Arthur doesn’t feel any better for it.

‘The hell do you know about it, Eames?’ He touches himself, right enough. He’d be in his room now, _touching himself_ and thinking about blowing Eames, if Eames weren’t such an argumentative fucking bastard.

Eames shakes his head. ‘I mean, just now. You were hard when we got in here, you’re half-hard now, but you didn’t touch yourself, not for one second, while you were blowing me.’

‘Why’s that your problem, Eames?’

‘It’s not,’ Eames says, and he does step back this time, and his posture softens a bit. ‘I just... For fuck’s sake, Arthur, you just blew my brains out and you think I’m not going to _care_ that you haven’t got anything out of it?’ Now he looks hurt. ‘I’m not actually a bastard, I’ll have you know.’

Arthur manages a small smile. ‘I know. Ariadne’d kick your ass if you were.’ Eames looks a bit startled to have Ariadne brought into this, but it’s true all the same.

There’s another interminable silence.

‘You going to tell me what the problem is, then?’

Arthur sighs. ‘I just... There are a lot of things I don’t like, Eames. For example, I don’t like getting head.’

‘So you said,’ Eames acknowledges. ‘And _I_ said, we can do something else.’

‘That wasn’t what you said, but point taken. Look. I really enjoyed that, what we just did. For what it’s worth.’

Eames’ eyes flare. ‘It’s worth rather a lot, Arthur.’

In spite of himself, Arthur’s a little bit touched. Maybe that’s why he goes on. ‘I don’t much like having orgasms in company, that’s all. Don’t make some big deal about it, because it’s not. I’m fine.’

Arthur can see the responses flit across Eames’ face, the _who the hell hurt you_ and the _how the fuck do you ever have a sex life_ and the _get over it already_ , all the usual stuff. But he doesn’t say them, which Arthur appreciates.

‘Ohh-kay then,’ is all he says. He looks like a man who’s just finished his puzzle and yet can’t identify anything in the picture.

‘So if you don’t mind, I’ll be going now.’ And maybe Arthur’s a bit snippy, but fuck, he’s still half-hard and it’s been a long day and he doesn’t enjoy talking about sex with anyone. But he _does_ like Eames, as a colleague and an odd sort of friend, and he certainly did like sucking Eames off, so he adds, ‘Thanks, Eames.’

Eames’ hand snaps out and grabs him by the wrist before he can leave. He glares down at the hand and then up at its owner.

‘Can I kiss you?’ Eames asks. ‘For... luck?’

Stupidest reason Arthur’s ever heard, but he hesitates long enough that Eames leans in anyway and presses his lips against Arthur’s. They’re really nice lips. Arthur tilts his head to fit his mouth a bit better against Eames’, and Eames takes that as the agreement it is. He kisses Arthur quickly, open-mouthed and messy. They’re both breathing raggedly when Eames draws back and turns, apparently content now, to pick up his trousers.

‘Good-bye, Arthur,’ Eames says, standing on one leg to put on his underpants. ‘Have fun now,’ he adds, with a smirk directed toward the bulge in Arthur’s trousers.

That, Arthur thinks, is the oddest ending he’s ever had to a sexual encounter. He makes his escape while he can.

* * *

It’s probable that he takes the ‘escape’ thing too far. On the other had, he _had_ promised Cobb he’d visit as soon as he got a chance.

Arthur doesn’t like children much, but Cobb’s kids aren’t so bad. James rarely stands still, so you needn’t worry about how to talk to him; your problems are in the areas of catching him, hauling him out of the way of whatever mildly dangerous thing he’s taken a fancy to, and resisting the urge to hang him from doorknobs by the straps of his overalls just to teach him a lesson. Phillipa is neat and charming and entirely happy to have sober conversations with her Uncle Arthur about the wonders of fractions and things which live under the sea.

Often, Arthur forgets that Cobb knows him better than anyone else alive. Cobb doesn’t really do the talking thing - that was Mal’s job. Mal did the talking for the three of them, teased out all the complicated, imprecise feelings which get tangled up among three people who see more of each other than they do of the waking world. She wasn’t always gentle, but that was her job. It was Arthur’s job, after Mal died. He wonders who pokes around in the recesses of Cobb’s mind now.

Maybe no one. Maybe that’s what normal life is, no one inside your head. Ever.

‘You’re hiding from something,’ Cobb says, and flips a slice of toast onto Arthur’s plate. Arthur swipes the jam from Phillipa and spreads it carefully across his breakfast.

‘Am I?’ he asks. He manages a tone of mild curiosity, but the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. They’re having this conversation in front of the children. It means Arthur can’t escape, and Cobb knows it; but more than that, it means Arthur can’t suddenly open up and go all words-all-over-the-place on Cobb.

Dominic Cobb is kind of a bastard.

‘You are,’ Cobb says, confiscating a knife from James before he can stick it up his nose. ‘What kind of fruit would you like?’ he asks, and it takes Arthur a moment to realise that it’s he who’s being addressed in encouraging parental tones.

‘Apple, thanks,’ he says, and catches it with a smile. Mal used to do that, the mother-duck thing, and it looked as odd with her cut-glass Parisian manners as it does with Cobb’s bristly demeanour.

‘Eames called my cellphone,’ Cobb says.

‘Did he?’ Arthur keeps his voice carefully brittle and neutral. Cobb will see that, of course, but he won’t see _through_ it, and they don’t have any rules for breaching that opacity.

‘He says Rodriguez called, and it’s your job to talk to - and I quote - that weasel-loving ferret-fucking stoat-faced maniac.’

‘Language, Dominic,’ Arthur says. ‘Not in front of the children.’

Cobb looks prim. ‘I appreciate my children’s broad vocabulary, Arthur, and you should, too.’

Phillipa scoops jam up off her plate with her forefinger. ‘What’s a ferret?’ she asks, innocently. ‘And why do you fuck it?’

Arthur snickers, pushes his chair back, and goes to call Rodriguez.

* * *

There are several things Arthur could say about Iceland. It has too few trees, is too damn cold, and it has too many absurdly quaint buildings. It also has a struggling financial sector, which means it attracts the interests of certain parties, namely, Rodriguez. Thus their presence here in the first place.

Arthur could say several pointed things about their hotel, too, but it seems that there’s no real grounds for complaining that his booking - three rooms, for individuals purporting to be brother, sister and cousin - has been upgraded to a fancy suite. ‘My supposedly-sister and our supposedly-cousin have over-enthusiastic sex and I don’t want to hear it’ is a complaint which, really, causes more problems than it solves.

He takes the suite.

Ariadne shows up first. Eames, apparently, is coming from Dublin. Arthur didn’t ask and Eames didn’t explain.

‘So,’ Ariadne says, swanning into the common area and sprawling across a couch. ‘You and Eames?’ She smirks at him.

‘There _is_ no me and Eames,’ Arthur grouches. He tries hiding behind a newspaper, but, one, it’s in Icelandic and he doesn’t read Icelandic, and two, Ariadne isn’t that easily foiled.

‘That’s my line.’ She sticks her tongue out at him.

‘Well at least one of us is telling the truth.’ Arthur wonders how much Eames told her, since apparently Eames told her. Normally he would assume everything, but if Eames told her everything, why the curiosity?

‘Suit yourself,’ Ariadne says. She stares up at the ceiling for a moment. ‘So. What do I need to know about this Helga Bertelsdottir?’

* * *

Arthur thinks that might be the end of it. They have their first conference, or meeting or argument or whatever you want to call it, in the kitchen the next afternoon. Three conflicting varieties of jet-lag and Eames’ reconnaissance activities effectively guarantee that they see very little of one another for the next few days. Eames and Ariadne keep their sex life, if they have one at the moment, to themselves.

It really, truly might be the end of it, if it weren’t for the fact that Arthur remembers. Eames comes sauntering into the apartment and Arthur thinks _I know what you look like when you come_. It’s unsettling, not least because Eames doesn’t seem to care. There are a whole host of people out there who know what Eames looks like when he comes, and God knows how many more who know one or other of his regular forgeries. It’s only Arthur who cares, Arthur whose pleasant personal wanking time has been invaded by the knowledge that he _knows what Eames looks when he comes_ and he knows how to make him do it again.

Arthur can’t remember the last time he came so hard as he did that day in Alexandria, his pants open before the door of his hotel room had even shut properly. He’d thought, for a split second, about dragging it out to savour the experience. He’d thought he might make it to the bed and lie down like a civilised person and jerk himself off nice and slowly, thinking about the sounds Eames made and the look on his face. Instead, he’d collapsed against the door and barely managed one or two rough strokes before he came, all over his hand and down the front of his very expensive trousers.

It’s possible, just possible, that Arthur is a little bit bad-tempered as a result of all this. He thinks he’s justified. Firstly, there’s the fact that those trousers will never be the same again. Secondly, there’s the fact that, even if they were, he’d never be able to wear them without getting hard just _knowing_. Apparently, aside from embarrassment and awkward team dynamics, one unforseen side effect of exercising one’s neglected libido is that it bloody well stays around.

Arthur is, of course, pondering these most inconvenient facts when Eames appears in the kitchen and tosses a big manila folder in Arthur’s direction.

‘That’s all I could find,’ he says, and Arthur flips the folder open and leafs through a couple of pages of neat handwritten notes on the whereabouts and daily routines of Helga Bertelsdottir, as well as some clippings from a local newspaper which Arthur, not having a hitherto unmentioned background in Norse literature from fucking Oxford, cannot read. First Cantonese, now Icelandic. He’d start thinking that Eames was some kind of freak linguistic savant if he didn’t know perfectly well that Eames knows not one single word of German, not even enough to buy train tickets.

‘Thanks,’ he says, shortly, and stares at his coffee cup as if it knows some way to get him out of the situation. Or at least out of Iceland.

Eames, who cannot take a hint, doesn’t go away. He looms over Arthur instead. Arthur grits his teeth and tells himself that he _will not_ stand up just to win at the looming game.

‘Look, Arthur,’ Eames says, and he sounds both awkward and exasperated. ‘It’s fine if you don’t want have sex with me again, but for fuck’s sake, stop sulking.’

‘I’m not sulking,’ Arthur says, reflexively. He looks up at Eames and then has to pretend, very hard, that his eyes are not more or less on a level with Eames’ cock.

Eames rolls his eyes. ‘Of course you’re not. Whatever you’re doing, with the silence and the brooding and the avoiding me and the not making stupid jokes anymore, stop it. We’re both grownups, or I thought we were.’

Arthur thinks about this for a moment, and concedes - not out loud, certainly not - that he may be sulking, just a bit. Then he thinks about what Eames just said, and splutters a bit. ‘If I don’t want - we didn’t _have_...’

Eames has a really impressive array of exasperated looks. This one seems to be reserved for times when Eames thinks Arthur doesn’t understand something, and Arthur thinks Eames is just plain wrong. Arthur’s kind of missed that look, actually. Maybe his holiday with Cobb and the kids was a bit too long.

Eames sighs, and drags a chair out from under the table to straddle it, arms across the chair back. ‘I don’t know what the hell planet you’re living on, Arthur, but last I checked, what we did? That’s called having sex.’

Arthur glares at him.

Eames takes that as an invitation to continue talking. ‘You can have whatever strange boundaries you like, but the fact that it there was only one orgasm involved doesn’t make it any less sex.’

‘Alright, alright, point taken,’ Arthur says. ‘Must we continue this lecture? I assure you, I got plenty of sexual health and safety talks in college.’ While you were busy learning bloody _Icelandic_ , he thinks, but he keeps his mouth shut on that one. He can give Eames shit about Icelandic when they’re not in Iceland anymore.

‘We can finish this lecture when you quit sulking and acting like you _are_ in college,’ Eames says. He has his impatient self-righteous face on, but his fingers are twitching nervously on the back of the chair. ‘It’s not terribly difficult. Repeat after me: _That was fun, Eames. Thanks. I don’t want to have sex with you again, but I hope we can still be friends._ ’

Arthur is not fucking repeating anything bloody Eames wants him to say. Except. ‘Wait, what? I don’t want to do it again?’

Eames looks startled. ‘Isn’t that what all the disappearing and the sulking’s about?’

Arthur thinks about this for a second. He’s not sure that he _does_ want to do - to have sex with Eames again. In several weeks of jerking off thinking about Eames, _again_ had not actually occurred to him as a possibility. ‘I suppose so,’ he says, and he must sound a bit unsure, because there’s a tiny crease of confusion in Eames’ brow. Fuck, Arthur hates these conversations. And he really hates that Eames is better at them than him. That makes four things - forgery, Icelandic, sex, and _talking_ about sex.

‘Right, well,’ he says, folding his arms. ‘Are you going to say the same thing to me?’

‘What thing?’

Arthur adopts a sing-song tone. ‘ _That was fun, Arthur. Thanks. I don’t want to have sex with you again, but I hope we can still be friends._ ’

Eames raises one eyebrow. ‘No,’ he says, slowly. ‘I’m not.’ There’s something in his voice, that typical Eames mixture of insolence and flirtation, which Arthur hasn’t heard since, well, since Alexandria. Arthur waits him out, sure that this, like everything else Eames, will end in either an insult or a come-on. ‘That would require that I not want to have sex with you again.’

Oh, fuck. Arthur really does not have either the words or the wherewithal to deal with this. He rubs his forehead with the heel of his palm and wonders why he didn’t stay home with Cobb and take up basket-weaving.

‘Eames,’ he says, ‘I don’t...’

‘So you said,’ Eames says. ‘Which is fine. I just want you to stop bloody sulking.’

‘No, I mean...’ Apparently, they’re having this conversation. ‘I don’t... often like sex.’ Eames raises one eyebrow and looks like he’s about to say something, but Arthur cuts him off - ‘And don’t say I’ve been doing it wrong. Point is, I don’t really care about doing it right. Or at all. Usually. Mostly.’

Eames digests this pronouncement, and probably has to spend a while piecing together Arthur’s fragmented sentences. He tilts his head a little and frowns at Arthur. ‘I see,’ he says. And then: ‘Was that the first time you’ve given head?’

Evidently it’s Discuss Arthur’s Sexual History Day. Arthur can deal with that, but the doesn’t have to like it. ‘To a man,’ he says, curtly.

‘Right,’ Eames says. He reaches over the foot of space between them and tips Arthur’s chin up a bit with his finger, so they’re looking at one another. ‘You have more walls than a prefab house factory, you know that?’ Arthur tries not to be amused, because it’s sort of an insult. And yet Eames isn’t being unkind, per se. ‘You don’t like getting head, and you’re not often interested in sex at all, but you did give me bloody good head and you seemed to enjoy it rather a lot.’

Arthur really hopes his face isn’t as red as it feels.

‘Well,’ Eames says. ‘If you decide you want to work on that particular skill some more, Arthur Darling, I hereby volunteer myself as a suitable test subject.’

Arthur swallows, and he knows, he just knows, that there’s his preoccupation for another month or so of private wanking. ‘Can I... think about it?’ Oh for fuck’s sake, he sounds like a sophomore asked out on her first date.

Eames’ slow, predatory smile is worth it, though. ‘Think about it as much as you like,’ he says, magnanimously, withdrawing his hand from Arthur’s chin. ‘As long as we can’t hear you through the walls.’

Eames is a sex fiend and, just in case Arthur stands any chance of forgetting that, has no sense of shame.

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, I do not understand Arthur in this fic as asexual, nor would he understand himself that way. He's got a truckload of issues, yes, and also a low and somewhat fickle libido. That's the main thing.


End file.
